A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury

1 220 Collection 8: Evaluating StylePart 1 Imagine being able to travel back in time. Many writers have explored thisidea in science fiction stories and movies. You are about to read one of themost popular_and thought-provoking_stories about time travel ever FOCUS: STYLE AND MOODA writer s diction, or word choice, greatly defines a work s is alsodetermined by sentence length and complexity. A story that is written inbrief simple sentences, for example, is different in style from a story writtenin long complex sentences. See below:The use (or non-use) of imagery and figurative language also has an effecton style. In the story you re about to read, Ray Bradbury uses vivid imageryand figurative language to create a style that is as lush as its prehistoric set-ting.

2 Mood,like style, is also created by diction, sentence length, imagery,and figurative language. A story s mood, or atmosphere, can be describedusing adjectives like scary, calm, andmysterious. As you read A Sound of Thunder , notice how Bradbury 's choice ofwords, imagery, and figurative language creates a unique style. As Bradbury describes the ancient jungle, think about the words you duse to describe the story s SKILLS: CAUSE AND EFFECTThe events in a story are connected by a chain of causes and causes another, which causes another, and so on. A causeis thereason something happens. An effectis the result. Certain words_likebecause, consequently, for, so, since,and therefore_can alert you to cause-and-effect you read A Sound of Thunder , look for causes and effects.

3 Thereare plenty to find. In fact, the whole story is about how one event causesanother_and another, and another, and .. Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights Sound of Thunder by Ray BradburyLiterary SkillsUnderstandelements ofstyle, includingfigurativelanguage and Latinprefixes andword : More Complex It was Miss Murdstone who wasarrived, and a gloomy-looking ladyshe was: dark, like her brother,whom she greatly resembled inface and voice .. (from DavidCopperfield, by Charles Dickens)Style: SimpleThe sun rose. The air was warm,my coffee was hot. Nothingstirred. Nothing breathed exceptfor the lizard. That lizard couldoutstare a Sound of Thunder 221annihilate( n l t )v.:destroy; wipe out. Ifwe continue to destroy the region's forests, wemay also annihilatethe wildlife that lives (ek spen d b l)adj.

4 : worth sacri-ficing to gain an officers regretted the loss but considered theground troops (d presh n)n.:major economicdownturn. (Depressionalso means sadness. )A depressionhit the country, resulting in wide-spread unemployment and (par d ks )n.:something that has orseems to have contradictory paradoxis that sometimes we are loneliestwhen we are in a crowd of (di lir m)n.:extreme mental distur-bance, often accompanied by hallucinations(seeing things that are not there).In his delirium,he imagined he was seeinggiant (ri zil y nt)adj.:able to return to itsoriginal shape quickly after being stretched orcompressed; resilientfabric springs back to its originalshape no matter how you stretch (ri mit )v.:return company will remit,or return, full paymentif the consumers are not (ri v k )v.

5 :cancel; can revokeyour club membership if youfail to attend (pr m v l)adj.:primitive; of the earliest the prehistoric world, giant lizards crashedthrough the (sub lim n l)adj.:below the level of the movie s subliminalmessage tobuy food, the audience flocked to buy SELECTION VOCABULARYThe following words appear in the story you are about to read. You may wantto become familiar with them before you begin by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights AND WORD ROOTSA prefixis a word part that comes before a word root and affects its knowledge of prefixes can help you figure out the meanings of unfamiliarwords. It can also help you use and understand a wider variety of words. Theword remit,for example, contains the prefix re-,which means back.

6 It alsocontains the word root mit,which means send. When you remitsomething,you send it back. When you come across an unfamiliar word, look for a prefix or word root yourecognize to help you figure out the word s sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of slidingwarm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and thesign burned in this momentary darkness:TIMESAFARI, TO ANY YEAR IN THE NAME THE YOU SHOOT warm phlegm gathered in Eckels s throat; he swallowed andpushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile ashe put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved acheck for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk. Does this safari guarantee I come back alive? We guarantee nothing, said the official, except thedinosaurs.

7 He turned. This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide inthe Past. He ll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says noshooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there s a stiffpenalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible govern-ment action, on your return. 10 Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights 8: Evaluating StylePart 1 Pause at line 16. Why do youthink there is such a stiffpenalty for disobeyinginstructions?Pause after you read the sign(lines 4-5). Underline theinformation that seemsunusual. Based on this infor-mation, when do you thinkthe story takes place? A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury . Copyright 1952 by the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co.; copyrightrenewed 1980 by Ray Bradbury . Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Sound ofThunderRay BradburyEckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle,a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora1that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue.

8 There wasa Sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the yearsand all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and touch of the hand and this burning would, on theinstant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the word-ing in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes,out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, thegreen years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turnIrish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, fleedeath, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skiesand set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to thecustom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chineseboxes2,rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to thefresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time beforethe beginning.

9 A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touchof a hand. Unbelievable. Eckels breathed, the light of the Machineon his thin face. A real Time Machine. He shook his head. Makes you think. If the election had gone badly yesterday, Imight be here now running away from the results. Thank GodKeith won. He ll make a fine President of the United States. Yes, said the man behind the desk. We re lucky. IfDeutscher had gotten in, we d have the worst kind of dictator-ship. There s an anti-everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, youknow, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became Presidentthey wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it s not our business toconduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith s Presidentnow.

10 All you got to worry about is 203040 Copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights Sound of Thunder 223 Pause at line 43. Who werethe two candidates for presi-dent of the United States?Circle their names. Whichone won the election?Re-read lines 17-35, and underline examples of figurative language(simile,metaphor, personification).Anti-is a prefix meaning against. According to thedescription of Deutscher inlines 43-44, what is he against ? ( r r ) n.: Bradbury is comparing the glow coming from thetime machine to an aurora, a colorful display of light that appears atnight in the skies near the North and South boxes:set of boxes, each of which fits into the next-largestone. Shooting my dinosaur, Eckels finished it for him. A Tyrannosaurus Tyrant Lizard, the most incredi-ble monster in history.